Fallout 3: Retribution Served
by Ultimate Telos
Summary: Steven Maine's long hunt for the elusive Mister Burke has reached its end. Tracking him to the luxurious Tenpenny Tower, he's ready to exact ruthless Wasteland-style vengeance upon his sly quarry, and his cruel employer.
1. Judgement Walking

Tenpenny Tower was a dark shadow against the moonlit sky of the Capital Wasteland. The stalwart structure, which had managed to withstand the devastation of the Great War, had been lovingly restored to its former condition and was now the deluxe home of Allistair Tenpenny – an elderly Englishman who used his wealth for personal gain, generally at the expense of others. Steven Maine, Sheriff of the Wasteland – also known by Three Dog as "The Lone Wanderer", "101" and "The Messiah" – stood atop a cliff about a kilometer away, carefully surveying the building. He meticulously noted every possible escape method – he could not allow his targets to get away.

When he was satisfied, Steven checked his arsenal of weaponry; everything was reasonably clean and in top condition. As much as he would have liked to simply blast his foes into oblivion with his Fat Man, a powerful mini-nuke launcher, the weapon and its ammunition were simply too cumbersome to lug across the desolate badlands between Megaton and Tenpenny Tower. However, he was armed to the teeth with pretty much everything else: a shotgun taken from a raider merchant in Evergreen Mills; the Xuanlong, a Chinese assault rifle pried from the cold, dead fingers of Prime, a computer hacker at the Jury Street diner; a suppressed 10mm pistol, in case stealth would be required; and finally, enough fragmentation mines and plasma grenades to blow the whole thing to hell. He was sheathed in light, semi-bulletproof combat armor gifted to him by a fine mercenary named Reilly, as a thank-you for rescuing her team from a horde of super mutants. Steven felt invincible, fueled with adrenaline. The chase was over. This siege was going to be deliciously satisfying.

Mister Burke was a smooth-talking, deceptively well-dressed man who once spent his time lurking in Moriarty's Saloon in Megaton. In Steve's eyes, the man was worse than scum – the lowest of all the wretched filth in the Capital Wasteland. Not only that, he was a coward. Two years ago, when Steve was fresh out of the Vault, Sheriff Lucas Simms had helped him gain a foothold in life – filled him in on the dangers of the wastes, provided basic survival tips and the like, given him some spare clothes, that sort of thing. Burke had attempted to coerce Steve into detonating Megaton's live atomic bomb with promises of comfort and large sums of money. Rejecting his offer, Steve alerted Simms about Burke's twisted plans, which led to a heated confrontation between the two. When Simms arrested him, Burke shot Megaton's righteous sheriff in the back, fatally wounding him. Mister Burke fled the settlement; at the time, Steve had been powerless to stop him, with very little training in combat – shooting, hand-to-hand, anything – but he had made it his mission to hunt down the silver-tongued demon and give him a taste of lead. Or plasma. Or whatever else felt appropriate. He felt he owed it to Simms. After all, was it not partially his fault that Megaton's charismatic leader was dead?


	2. Brutal Force

Steve strode determinedly towards the looming silhouette of Tenpenny Tower. A grim slash represented his mouth, and a filthy scowl dominated his eyebrows. A pair of rough-looking guards blocked the gate inside.

"Whaddya want?" the taller of the guards snarled, taking a long drag on a cigarette. He looked like he hadn't cleaned himself in months, and his combat armor reeked of alcohol and piss. He coughed, hard, before regaining his composture and leaning against the ramshackle wall.

"Revenge, justice for my friend, and free ammo off any of you bastards who try to stop me," Steven growled, and raised his silenced 10mm. Before the gruff mercenary could utter another word, Steven had fired three bullets into his face. His nose burst apart as the projectiles tore into his brain, killing him before coming out the other side in a spattering of red goo.

The other guard, a short, beefy thug, attempted to grab his assault rifle in time to defend himself, but Steve had expected the clumsy move and whirled around to quietly end the other guard's life with a quick shot to the neck.

Guns for hire were hard to come by the in Capital Wastleland. Hell, human contact was hard to come by in the Capital Wastleland. Steven estimated he had at least an hour before anybody noticed the dead mercs, but it was better to be on the safe side and act quickly. Taking out some frag mines, he laid them around the gate, and in a wide circle around Tenpenny Tower. They blended in quite well with all the dry grass and dust. Escape was not an option.

Steve didn't just want to sneak in, assassinate Burke and get out again. If he'd wanted to do that, he would have simply scaled the tower, offed Tenpenny and his butt-buddy/bodyguard in their sleep, and climbed back down with a grappling line. He wanted to send a message out to the Wasteland – the law was back, and more brutal than ever before.

Steve noticed a scruffy hobo watching him set the deadly traps with sad, hopeless eyes.

"Water..? Please…" the dehydrated beggar rasped, barely conscious. Steven gave the man a sympathetic smile, and tossed him a bottle of Aqua-Pura.

"After I'm done here," Steve told the jubilant drifter, "you can have this tower. Just watch out for the mines."

Leaving the speechless tramp to guzzle the uncontaminated water, the Wasteland's vicious lawbringer strolled inside Tenpenny Tower's courtyard. A grand marble fountain stood as the centerpiece of the entranceway; on the right a group of dilapidated bunk beds housed most of the Tower's security, whilst on the left a few tables and chairs were scattered about evenly. Smashed bottles of whiskey, cigarette butts and empty ammo cartridges littered the ground. Steven activated a plasma grenade and almost casually tossed it to where most of the guards were sitting, smoking and talking.

"Hey, what the fuck are you –" a sentry just inside the doorway began, before Steven cut him off with a hail of bullets, spraying him with the Xuanlong. He didn't bother to aim down the sights – speed was crucial to his success. Less than half a second prior to the sentry hitting the floor, the grenade detonated in a bright-green explosion of hot gas and goo. The stunned guards were vaporized by the high-tech missile. Steven heard screams from inside the building as the dust and plasma settled around him. Stepping past the corpses and flecks of green sludge, he pushed through the doors into the Tower lobby.


	3. Penance in Part

Well-dressed snobs rose from their seats as Steven's menacing presence drew near.

"Oh my god, there's a psychopath on the loose!"

"Help, help!"

"Please don't kill me, I'll do anything!"

Some begged for their lives, others fled into the minefield where they disappeared in thin clouds of smoke and shrapnel. Steve ignored them, taking an elevator straight to the top, where Tenpenny and Mister Burke slept.

The elevator was a basic pre-war one; mirrors on the walls, a grimy steel railing to grab onto for support, circular buttons that lit up when pressed. Steve's stomach lurched as it sped to the uppermost level, then rapidly slowed to a halt. The doors dinged open and the obsessed sheriff burst out, rifle blazing. There were only three security officers on this level, but there were probably more waiting for him below. He dealt with them swiftly, then kicked open Tenpenny's bedroom door.

Allistair Tenpenny wasn't inside his room - the bed, bathtub and living room were all deserted. Steven Maine threw open the metal door to the balcony, where Tenpenny was reclining in a preserved pre-war chair.

"Ah, young wanderer," the elderly man smiled, "you seem to have proved you're a worthy fighter. Say, do you think we could make some sort of arrangement that might benefit us both?"

"You fucking coward," spat Maine, "arrange this!" With that, he grasped onto Tenpenny's fragile body by his collar, and hurled him over the edge of the balcony. Tenpenny's cries of terror echoed until he hit the ground, shattering his entire skeleton.


	4. Wrath of the Wasteland

Tenpenny dealt with, Steve quickly searched the other sides of the balcony in case Mister Burke was hiding, but he was nowhere to be seen. Steven stormed back inside, making his way to the main corridor where he would use search the entire tower. As he approached the staircase, an angry voice shouted, "There he is!"

Steven leapt behind a pillar as gunfire erupted around him. Chaos reigned - powder blasted off the walls, the deafening noise of the shots drowned out any yells, smoke and dust clouded vision. The security team, who were huddled just in sight, fired wildly, with no idea where they were meant to be aiming.

"Shit," Steven muttered to himself as stray bullets whizzed past, fumbling for another plasma grenade.

Before he could activate one, one of the guards managed to fling a concussion grenade his way. If it had been any further from Steven, he might have been annihilated, or at least badly burned, by the explosive concoction. The grenade, however, landed close enough for him to quickly chuck it back towards his assailants. It blasted out a large chunk of wall directly beside the staircase, adding to the anarchy.

Steven spent at least a minute huddled against the cold, cream pillar as the security officers expended their magazines on the pointless assault. Finally, they stopped firing.

"Is he… dead?" one of them asked, creeping forward.

"He'd fuckin'… better beee," slurred another, obviously drunk.

The first merc moved away from the staircase, coming out from the cover to check behind Steven's pillar. The others cautiously followed him, alert for any signs of Steve's survival. The lead guard moved slowly around, finger quivering on the trigger. Suddenly, a loud shotgun blast rang out and the merc's head popped like a melon, showering the already-dirty floor with chunks of bone and brain.

Steven sprang away from the other side of the pillar and took out another one with a flash of buckshot to the chest. The mercenaries, several intoxicated, spun to where he'd just been, but he was fast. Ducking and diving forward, he blew apart the leg of a third, before rolling behind another column.

Immediately switching back to the Xuanlong, Steven let loose a concentrated volley at the remaining few. By the time everyone was dead, the floor was completely soaked in blood, and it was starting to leak down the stairs.

"Burke!" he howled, sprinting down the steps three at a time. Leaning over the railing, he caught a glimpse of the suited man dashing to the lobby, fleeing for his life. As usual, Burke was wearing a grubby white pinstriped shirt and pants with a tie, something that might have been fashionable before the war. His hat flew off his head as he bolted away. Redoubling his efforts, Steven catapulted himself down as fast as he could, stumbling several times. He didn't care. He had to exact sweet vengeance on the backstabbing prick.

Maine finally caught up with him six flights of stairs below. As Mister Burke tried to round a corner, Steven gripped the back of his neck and smashed his face hard into the metal railing. Burke's nose made a satisfying crunch. Hot, warm liquid began to fill his mouth, making it harder to speak.

"I'b nod goig ta try ta bake you spare by life," gasped Burke through a mouthful of blood. "I know you hade me."

"You got that fucking right," roared Steven, flying into a rage. He absolutely ripped into his mortal enemy. All his pent-up fury, anger, insecurities, fear, he took it all out on the smartly-dressed individual before him. He lashed out with everything he had. Fist after fist pounded into him, occasionally interspersed with a kick or two. Burke was dead long before Steven was finished with him and decided to discharge a round of buckshot into his head.


End file.
